Weekend to forget for SGR team

Published:10:03Tuesday 14 May 2019

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The second round of the Dickies British Supersport championship was one to forget for Tom Oliver and SGR Racing. Despite good race pace, and a strong qualifying shear bad luck put paid to any solid race results.

Oliver put his SGR Racing Yamaha into sixth place on the grid, fifth overall in the Supersport class. He unfortunately was unable to start from the grid due to a new tyre pressure rule.

Oliver’s tyres were found to be a small amount under the deemed level and therefore he had to be removed from the grid. He made a start from the pitlane, starting 40 behind the last rider. He worked hard to get through the field and secured a decent grid place for the feature race, fifth on the grid and fourth in class.

The feature race got off to a manic start and on the second lap on the run into Cascades, the front tucked unsettling the bike and sending Oliver straight across the grass.

Thankfully Oliver pulled off the save of the century by not crashing and instead running at high speed across the wet grass.

In doing this he went from turn three to turn 12 and although he re-joined at turn 12 in tenth place the rules state that he needed to re-join at the same corner as where the incident took place. This lead to him being black-flagged and pulled out of the race.

Tom Oliver said: “What a weekend that was, you really couldn’t make it up. It’s a real shame as we had good pace and my SGR Racing Yamaha was running well. I enjoy Oulton Park and felt I could bring home a strong result. It clearly wasn’t meant to be. Anyway, we need to keep looking and moving forward to Donington, which is the next round. We will come out fighting.”

Stephen Kinghorn, owner of the Northumbria-based team said: “This weekend has been tough. As a small family team we work hard to make sure the bike is always spot on. The new tyre rule has caught a few people out this weekend in all classes. Rules are rules, it’s the same for everyone so we will take it on the chin and move on.

“We will make sure our tyres are well over the standard psi so this can’t happen to us again. As for the second incident, Tom just wanted to get a result and unfortunately the front end let go.”